SHORTLISTS FOR 2019 CILIP CARNEGIE AND KATE GREENAWAY MEDALS

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BfK No. 236 - May 2019

This issue’s cover illustration features Rumblestar, book one in The Unmapped Chronicles series by Abi Elphinstone illustrated by Carrie May. Thanks to Simon and Schuster for their help with this May cover.

The shortlists for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals have been announced. Selected by volunteer Youth Librarians from longlists of 20 books per medal, there are eight on each shortlist.

Alongside previously shortlisted authors and illustrators, there are newcomers on each shortlist, and as the poetry boom for young readers continues, three verse novels make the Carnegie shortlist by US authors Elizabeth Acevedo, Kwame Alexander and Jason Reynolds.

The Lost Words illustrated by Jackie Morris, written by Robert Macfarlane (Hamish Hamilton)

Suffragette: The Battle for Equality illustrated and written by David Roberts (Two Hoots)

Jon Klassen is the only previous winner to appear on a 2019 Medal shortlist, having won the 2014 Kate Greenaway Medal with This Is Not My Hat. Former shortlistees to make it onto this year’s lists are Frances Hardinge and Kate Saunders for the Carnegie Medal, and Rebecca Cobb, David Roberts and Jackie Morris for the Kate Greenaway Medal.

There is a strong showing for independent publishers on the lists, with seven of the 16 titles coming from Andersen Press, Child's Play Library, David Fickling Books, Faber & Faber and Lantana Publishing. The two smallest presses – Child's Play Library and Lantana Publishing – have books on the Kate Greenaway shortlist for the first time.

4,500 reading groups in schools across the country will now embark on the Medals’ shadowing scheme, which sees children and young people reading and debating the shortlisted books between now and the winner announcement in June 2019. In 2018, thousands of children read for pleasure as a result of the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards.

Alison Brumwell, Chair, CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals judging panel, comments: ‘This year’s outstanding shortlists clearly demonstrate the vision, vitality and depth of children’s publishing, including the emergence of small, independent publishers. Superb debuts take pride of place alongside established, well-known names, representing the very best in writing and illustration for children and young people. Challenging themes of bereavement, isolation, friendship and identity are treated with humanity and insight and in a range of distinctive written and illustrative styles.’

The winners of the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals 2019 will be announced on Tuesday 18th June 2019 at a special daytime event at The British Library hosted by Konnie Huq. The winners will each receive £500 worth of books to donate to their local library, a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize.

The Shadowers’ Choice Award, voted for and awarded by the children and young people who shadow the Medals, will be announced alongside the two Medal winners. This new award has evolved out of CILIP’s recent Diversity Review which identified opportunities to empower and celebrate the young people involved in the Medals through the shadowing scheme by giving them a more significant voice and visible presence in the process and prize giving.

Amnesty International UK continues to support the Medals in partnership with CILIP, providing educational resources and training to raise awareness and understanding of the power of children’s books to explore human rights, encourage empathy and broaden horizons. Amnesty have produced human rights-based materials for all the shortlisted books to aid reflection and discussion in classrooms and libraries.